Marcella
Burke

Marcella Burke is an energy attorney and strategic advisor in the Washington DC and Houston offices. A corporate energy attorney with experience in upstream mergers and acquisitions, she counsels her clients on high stakes environmental and regulatory matters onshore and on the outer continental shelf, including Alaska. Her practice focuses on environmental enforcement and crisis response, decommissioning, royalty valuation, sustainable projects and investments, and regulatory counseling across the energy sector, including conventional oil and gas, hydraulic fracturing, renewables, and offshore wind. Marcella served as Deputy Solicitor for Energy and Natural Resources, and Senior Counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management at the Department of Interior. She also served as Deputy General Counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Marcella counsels clients as they navigate pressing corporate and environmental challenges. She draws from her experience in environmental and natural resources regulation, emergency planning and incident response, crisis management, congressional investigations, as well as her background as a corporate energy attorney, to help companies grow and achieve their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals. Marcella counsels clients on decommissioning, idle iron, and other end of life asset liability matters.

At the Department of the Interior, Marcella was lead counsel for departmental rulemakings and related regulatory and administrative matters, she oversaw all onshore and offshore enforcement matters, and she was responsible for the Department’s high-stakes, complex energy disputes. In that role, she worked closely with the Department of Justice, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Office of Management & Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), the Department of Commerce, and other federal agencies.

Marcella represented the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation (OSMRE), all of which oversee management of federal lands. She served as Counsel to the Royalty Policy Committee and received appointments with the Regulatory Reform Task Force and as a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) team lead. Marcella also coordinated crisis and environmental response while at the Environmental Protection Agency.